


Slates and Strange Things

by helsinkibaby



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4277058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't supposed to happen to Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slates and Strange Things

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt "reading to someone" on my Cotton Candy Bingo card.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to be here now, like this. She'd retired from field duty-voluntarily, thank you very much, though she supposed it probably would have happened anyway, what with shooting and presumably killing a fellow operative. Still, she'd made her own choice and save for a brief foray into the field to deliver a message to Bond, she'd been surprisingly happy on desk duty - after all, personal assistant to the Big Boss wasn't the worst job in the world.

Until the world as she knew it had fallen down around her. Someone reaching out to an old cover of hers. Investigation of same leading to the discovery that this was big. Immediate reassignment to the field, accompanied by the very man she had been on her last two field assignments with. Bond had been less than enthused at the assignment and M had assumed, and they had let him, that it was because she'd shot him off a moving train. M had muttered something about trust issues and Bond had snorted and Eve had stared at her shoes and tried to think of him as Bond and not James.

She just about managed that in the office but later that night in her - their? - apartment, it wasn't so easy. "It's nothing to do with your capabilities," he told her and she knew he was telling her the truth. He trusted her as an agent, but she wasn't just an agent to him any more and that was part of the problem.

A bigger part was that neither of them knew exactly what they were to one another, but Eve thought that was a discussion for another time.

"You just like knowing where I am and what I'm doing at all times, you mean," she countered, her teasing tone softening her words and he sighed, reached out a hand to touch her cheek.

"I like knowing you're safe," he replied, eyes dark with worry and there was very little Eve could say to that. So she kissed him instead.

In the end, he'd turned out to be right- not that she was ever going to give him the satisfaction of admitting that if she ever saw him again. She'd been made, through no fault of her own, a bloody double agent that no-one had suspected selling her out. They'd snatched her from the street in broad daylight and she'd tried to run but there were too many of them. They'd bundled her into a van, given her something to knock her out and when she woke up, she was in a dark room, tied to a chair.

That had been uncomfortable. The torture, on the other hand, had been horrific. She didn't tell them anything, had managed to hold herself together but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't relieved when she heard the faint sound of grenades and gunfire and the oncoming cavalry.

And if she lost consciousness when she opened her eyes and stared into a familiar pair of pale blue staring back at her, she tells herself it was only from relief.

When next she opens her eyes, she is in what might just be the most comfortable hospital bed she's ever experienced. (nothing but the best for Her Majesty's Secret Service) A familiar voice brings her to wakefulness and when she blinks to bring the room into focus, she sees James sitting by her bedside. It's James, not Bond, it has to be, because he's reading to her and a quick glance assures her it's the battered copy of Anne of Green Gables that she's had since she was eleven, the one that's on her bookcase in her flat, the one she reads at least once a year, the one he teases her about. Anne is about to crack a slate over Gibert's head but when James sees her eyes open he stops reading and leans over. He says nothing, just takes her hand in his and squeezes it gently.

"You look terrible," she tells him, because he's all dark shadowed red eyes and three day stubble, but when he hears her voice he smiles a transforming smile.

"You look beautiful," he says and while she's sure he's wrong, she's not going to refuse him.

"You win," she tells him and if she thinks she'll get the last word, she's wrong.

Kissing her hand, he says simply, "I know," before he picks back up the book and continues reading.

Smiling, Eve listens.  



End file.
